Firelight
by Mornen
Summary: Finwe is dead. The Silmarils are taken. Darkness is on Valinor, and Feanor tells Maglor something that he can tell no one else. Set immediately before the departure from Valinor. Warnings: violence, hatred, blood, mild insanity.


'I wish that I could go back and change everything that has happened since then, or die first, before it happened.' He speaks to the wine because it is like him: bitter, staining, and almost gone. Yet it sits in his glass springing firelight back at him in mockery of the darkness that grips his heart. 'I hate them.'

Fëanor puts the glass down, empty. He feels his heart in his throat pulsing against the tight muscles. In the corner, he can see his reflection thrown back at him from a mirror. His skin is bare and covered with sweat that catches the cruel, laughing light.

'I hate them, and him, and every lie I have ever heard in my life.' He can see the reflection's lips tremble; its grey eyes are filled with anger. 'Fëanáro,' it hisses, disgust in its voice. 'You are damned.'

He throws his glass at it. Mirror, reflection, crystal and light break in an instant, shattering to the floor. Only the light grows stronger, a thousand times stronger, living again in each broken piece of glass.

'Damned.' The reflection has not died. He sees the eye, grey and hating, watching him from the corner of the mirror where one piece still dares hang.

'Damned.'

In another moment, it is gone, and he is kneeling on the broken glass, clutching a shard in his hand. Blood is creeping out from between his fingers. The back of the mirror stands empty.

'You asked me to live,' he tells his hand, for it is like him: trembling, bleeding, and torn. 'You asked me to be everything I could not be, and I loved you, Father.' He spits the words out, and the spittle drops onto his hand catching the light and shining.

He wipes it on the floor, on the glass, and his blood joins the light. 'I want to die.' He flings the shard away, but it does not break. 'I want to go back and die before it happens. Before it happens.'

'Father.'

Someone has entered. Someone dares to stand behind him and speak to him the address that is only meant for one. One who can never again hear it. What a jest. What a laugh. And he hears laughter now, and he has words to join it.

'When you were born, did your mother leave you?'

'Father…'

'Answer me.' The joke is old and tired. Fëanor does not laugh again. He stands slowly. 'Answer me, Kanafinwë.'

'No, Father.'

'And, when you were born,' his voice is hoarse, 'did your father grieve because your mother died?'

Then arms are around him. Maglor draws his father close to him. He is crying, and he smells like salt. He supports Feänor against him as if his father were his child.

'Father. Father,' he whispers. 'Hush, hush.' He runs his hands over his hair. 'Hush.'

Fëanor can see Maglor's neck. It is shadowed by firelight. His dark hair clings to his skin. His shirt is red, scarlet even, damp from the tears Fëanor sheds on it. He can feel them running down his cheeks, down his neck, against his son. He drinks the ones that touch his lips. He clings to Maglor, kisses him wherever his mouth touches, bites skin and tendon and bone through silk.

'Father, no.'

Fëanor's hands fight to reach through flesh and touch Maglor's heart to silence it. Every breath is a lifetime of agony that he wants to end. He is sinking. The floor is nearer; the chair is closer. But Maglor sways, and they crumple to the stone together over the glass.

A cry, and he is on top of Maglor, pressing him onto the broken glass. He catches his hair in the ring on his hand and tears it aside to see his face. Maglor's eyes are wide, waiting for one more provocation, before the spirit in him will fight. There is blood smeared against his nose.

'_Father._' It is a hiss.

Fëanor drags Maglor up from the floor and presses him against the empty mirror. The golden frame surrounds him as if he were a portrait. He stands as still as a painting, his eyes daring him for one more strike.

'Did you think I loved you?' Fëanor demands. He holds Maglor against the mirror, one hand to his throat, one hand pointing a finger at him, to shame him. 'Did you think that, Makalaurë? Kanafinwë? My songbird? My son?'

Maglor shakes his head, and he nods, and he turns his face away.

Fëanor wrenches his hair, forcing Maglor to look at him again. He looks freshly stabbed. His skin is on fire from the gold of the frame that boldly reflects the light.

'_Answer me!_'

'Yes!' Maglor tears away, stumbling on the shards of glass. He falls and catches himself on his father's leg. His face sinks against his stomach, and Fëanor can feel his breath on his skin, hot and fast and dry. He still does not fight.

'You are so much like your mother.'

The breath slows, coming out in deep shudders.

'Of course I loved you.'

Maglor is crying again, his arms around his waist, his face buried against Fëanor's abdomen. The tears trickle down to his navel and pool against it, a reminder that he was once born, a reminder that his mother died. He hates it.

He drags Maglor to his feet and pushes him into the chair. He is still sobbing, infuriated and tired, so Fëanor kisses him. He holds his hands in his and kisses him until Maglor is too spent to cry any longer. And then he kisses him some more until he has kissed all the tears away, and he smells like stale saliva and not like living salt. And then he kisses him more because he is afraid of what will happen when he stops and has to think again.

'I hate them. I hate _them_,' he tells Maglor, pressing kiss after kiss against his jaw. 'I hate light. I hate dark. I hate him.'

Maglor is nodding, pressing him away, nodding and nodding and turning his face away from him. He keeps his eyes closed.

'I hate the light.'

And the floor is covered in wax, and there is smoke in the air. Not knowing how or when it happened, Fëanor stands in darkness that he created. He must have knocked the candles over. They are littered on the ground.

'I hate fire, Maglor,' he whispers. 'And darkness, Melkor, and myself.'

He is standing in a pool of hot wax. Maglor is only a shadow and the sound of bated breath somewhere in front of him. 'And the Silmarils. I hate them and their holy, mocking light.'

'Father.' Maglor's voice has tears in it again. He cries like he swallowed the ocean.

Fëanor drops to his knees in front of him and finds his face with his hands. He touches his cheek and smoothes back his hair.

'Remember that, my songbird, my beautiful, broken boy. I will not be glad when I find them. I will not rejoice in their light. Everything, _everything_ is a mockery. And they – their light will only entrap me, entrap everyone!' He clutches Maglor's hands tightly; his nails dig into skin.

'Cast them aside if you find them, my child. Promise me that!'

Maglor is nodding again, choking on his tears. Still Fëanor continues.

'Throw them away, far, far away where nothing will find them and no one will touch them – where their light will trouble no marred souls. Do you promise me that?'

'Yes, Father. I promise.'

'Nothing is perfect but those jewels, and I hate them for their bright, spiteful perfection that only shows what we are.' Fëanor's voice comes as a hiss in the dark.

'Damned. Damned. Damned.'


End file.
